The devolution of power to city regions in England has been more technocratic than democratic say Dr Arianna Giovannini of the University of Sheffield and Dr Andrew Mycock of the University of Huddersfield.

First time voters in the most recent election to the Northern Ireland Assembly were born in the weeks and months following the Good Friday Agreement. Professor Cathy Gormley-Heenan of the University of Ulster considers whether change is the new constant as #GFAgen comes of age.

On the face of it, the results of the Scottish Parliament elections on May 5th 2016 do not look promising for gender equality. Overall women now form 35% of Holyrood, exaqctly the same as in 2011, still down from the 2003 high of 40% but the shift to minority government offers some hope for progress..

The SNP machine has been quick to point out that the party has just won its (and any party’s) highest ever share of constituency votes. The translation of constituency votes into seats highlights the disproportionality of that element of the system: 46.5% delivered 81% of seats. This compares with the result from last year’s Scottish results in the UK general election when the SNP won 95% of seats with 50% of the vote. But this was not a first-past-the-post election. The SNP advanced in the constituencies but fell back on the lists.

After the high drama of #Indyref and the cliffhanger-that-wasn't of #GE2015, this year's Scottish Parliament election campaign may have seemed a little modest by comparison. However, says Prof Paul Cairney, it has had its talking points.

In the first of our new blog series, Politics in a Changing Spain, Dr Robert Liñeira (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) looks at the recent parliamentary election and its implications for the future of Spanish politics.

In their contribution to our majority nationalism series, Antoine Bilodeau of Concordia University and Luc Turgeon of the University of Ottawa share the result of their survey which compares the way in which Quebecers and Canadians construct community boundaries.